


Notes on writing the "Women of the Night Lords" series.

by MA7



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 06:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10758825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MA7/pseuds/MA7
Summary: Just random rambling about my writing during a patch of writers block.





	Notes on writing the "Women of the Night Lords" series.

Notes on writing the "Women of the Night Lords" series.

Hi all, I'm currently having a bit of writers block in the latest chapter of "life in the Nightmare Asylum" so felt like writing about the series as a whole right now.

Where to start? Well it all started when I watched and read the hunger games series back in 2016 (I know I'm really behind in waiting so long to read it). I saw the dystopia that President Snow ruled and I was fascinated about the idea of making it even worse (I'm fascinated by dystopian themes). 

In response I came up with the idea of the 40k planet Wsuioo (I got the name from a random number plate I saw when driving while trying to think of a name in case you are wondering) and liked it so much that I wrote some notes on it ("notes on planet Wsuioo") just for the fun of it. I had never written down my random thoughts before like this and I really enjoyed it.

It was maybe a few months later that I came up with the idea of one of the miserable inhabitants of Wsuioo being taken out of that setting (being abducted by the night lords was the most likely way of escape) and getting revenge on the planet. Originally MA7 was supposed to be the primary protagonist of the story and chapter 1 focused exclusively on her when I finally started writing.

Chapter 2 however completely derailed this original story direction and I am really glad that it did. Enter Octavia and suddenly everything changed.

Octavia was never originally supposed to survive chapter 2, in the original plan Luke cut her throat after raping her and it was supposed to focus on the sad pointlessness of her death to reinforce just how evil Luke was. That is why the rape scene was so edgy and full of threat, because it was actually building up to her being murdered. I got the name "Octavia" from a minor character in the hunger games. I chose it because I wanted to emphasise just how "imperial" her origins are, her name is positively dripping with Roman Imperialism.

At the last moment I just couldn't bring myself to kill her off as I felt deep empathy for the character I had created (silly as that sounds). She very quickly went from a minor character that gets killed off to being the most important character in the entire series.

In a storyline full of damaged and insane evildoers, Octavia became the "only sane" woman. At first she was an "every woman" type character, absolutely average in every single way and I had no real plan for her to be anything more than the lens we explore a crazy world through. I very deliberately made her completely asexual and I promised myself to never ever become a sexual character (still amazed by how badly that turned out haha).

As for names of characters, the cartel members all have very common names and every one has a different name to avoid confusion. Despite this I did forget names (and details) of many minor characters, creating a lot of issues at later stages. 

The Slaanesh worshippers (lower class ones at least) all have really horrible names (that my spouse cannot stand hahaha) either stripper/prostitute names (eg Candy, Sugar, Sugarjugs, Honey, Hunk) or else names of sexual anatomy or activities (Labia, Nipple, Anal, Glans, Oral, Clitoris). A lot of it is self explanatory and was originally done humorously.

By about chapter 5 the original plot had completely broken down and it just became extremely fun to keep writing, letting the complete chaos go where it will. I never expected anyone to ever read it so I just wrote it for me as it was really fun to write. From that point onwards I had no idea what each chapter would be like and was just carried along for the ride. (I had a vague plan of MA7 eventually ascending but that was about it really).

At least the first book was like that anyway. The second and third books are far less chaotic. (Even writing this right here is chaotic haha).

My favourite antagonist by far is TigerLily, she is just so fun to write and adds serious danger to everyone around her at every stage. Her plans are so convoluted that even she gets lost in them and is right on the edge of being irredeemably evil, but has so much sass and humour about it that you want her to succeed even though she is a turd morally speaking. She is another example of a minor character (Sigmund's rebound girl) who completely took over the entire series.

The other break out characters are of course Wendy and Talon Sevenson. Neither of them were meant to be more than extremely minor characters. Talon in particular probably had the most profound impact on Octavia's life.

By the end of the first book the story had gotten so massive that I was forgetting details about the story (and couldn't find them in the sheer size of the document) that I was forced to start a second book as a sequel. The second book (sisters in slavery) is the most structured book in the series and is probably my favourite.

Sisters in slavery starts off with Octavia shown as almost completely corrupted and it really chronicles her own moral journey to "balance" her Slaanesh worship with (admittedly slight) humanity and common decency (again lacking). The main themes of Sisters in slavery is the fact that the 40k universe really isn't just nor fair and the entire issue of slavery and not being free.

The third book "Octavia's Children" is a complete flop that I hate with a passion. It got so bad that about halfway through I stopped taking it seriously and instead simply focused on trashing the Ultramarines. It was just all around a terrible book that I was relieved to finally finish so that I never had to deal with it again.

Right now I am writing the 4th book "life in the Nightmare Asylum", which is an attempt to recapture the sheer plotless craziness of the first book. The Nightmare Asylum is really turning into a book about TigerLily and it is great fun to write.

I plan to just keep writing forever until it's no longer fun. My job involves a lot of waiting time, sometimes even more than 50 percent waiting around on some days when customer turnover is slow so I fill this time with writing. It's my escape from hours of boredom (my most recent 8 hour shift involved like 5 hours of waiting around, and NO I unfortunately don't get paid by the hour lol).

I might get back to continuing writing chapter 19 of "life in the nightmare asylum" now, thanks for listening to me ramble on ;)


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